Referring now to FIG. 1, a first endpoint device 102 communicates via a communications channel 104 with a second endpoint device 106. The first and second endpoint devices 102 and 106 may be telephones, computers, or other Voice over IP (VoIP) capable devices. The communications channel 104 may be a local area network, the Internet, or any other suitable distributed communications medium. Typically, first and second endpoint devices 102 and 106 establish a connection using a signaling protocol such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). The signaling protocol determines common capabilities of the endpoint devices 102 and 106. The established connection may use the Real time Transport Protocol (RTP) to transmit data, and this connection may be referred to as a Switched Virtual Circuit (SVC).
Alternately, the first endpoint device 102 may communicate with the communications channel 104 via a base station 108, as shown in FIG. 2. In this case the first endpoint device 102 may be a cordless phone communicating with the hard-wired base station 108. In either case, the first and second endpoint devices 102 and 106 implement the signaling functionality. The endpoint devices 102 and 106 also implement media processing functionality.